James Weatherup’s Great Find: the discovery,
identification and sale of a copy of the Bay Psalm Book anthony s. drennan
The Eleventh Copy In 1933 the eleventh and most recently discovered copy of the 1640 Bay Psalm Book (the earliest surviving book printed in British North America) was purchased without its title-page for one penny (two cents) by coal merchant and provincial bibliophile James Weatherup from a second-hand bookshop in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Of this discovery, and Weatherup’s identification of the edition, the famous American book dealer Dr. A. S. W. Rosenbach claimed ‘the man who could identify the Bay Psalm Book minus the title page was a wonder!’ Weatherup sold his copy to Rosenbach and today it resides in the Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia, recently renamed The Rosenbach. 1 The sale at auction of a copy of the Bay Psalm Book for a world record $14,165,000 in November 2013 briefly illuminated this dark corner of the bibliographical world. 2 Although the previous sale of a copy in 1947 also created a world record $141,000 for a printed book, few people have heard of the Bay Psalm Book let alone seen one. No bibliographical comparison of the eleven existing copies 1 . The story has been summarized in Edwin Wolf 2nd and John F. Fleming Rosenbach a Biography (Cleveland, 1960) and Donald Oresman ‘The Belfast Bay Psalm Book’ American Book Collector (1986), both based upon Rosenbach and Weatherup’s ex- change of telegrams deposited in Rosenbach’s files. 2 . The Bay Psalm Book Sotheby’s Auction Catalogue New York 26 November 2013 gives the most complete census of each of the eleven copies.
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